Quest to fill void on family tree leads to documentary film on lost opera

Matt Sezer/Handout

Filmmaker Arlen Parsa poses with a portrait of his great-grandfather Eustasio Rosales, a Colombian composer whose long lost opera was made possible through his documentary efforts.

Filmmaker Arlen Parsa poses with a portrait of his great-grandfather Eustasio Rosales, a Colombian composer whose long lost opera was made possible through his documentary efforts. (Matt Sezer/Handout)

Even if you do, you should keep your eyes open for Andina — specifically, “The Way to Andina,” a documentary film by Arlen Parsa that will air on WTTW-Ch. 11 Thursday. The 70-minute piece chronicles Colombian composer Eustasio Rosales’, Parsa’s great-grandfather, unproduced operatic work “Andina.”

“This is a story that spans a couple of generations of Chicago family history – we have this immigrant composer who makes his way from Colombia to Chicago 100 years ago and here I am his great-grandson who knows nothing about music, but sorta, kinda puts the puzzle pieces together that he left behind,” Parsa said.

According to the film, Rosales came to Chicago from Bogotá, Colombia, in the 1920s bringing with him music that melded Latin instruments with other classical instruments. A musical life with his classically trained soprano wife unfolds in the narrative during which the audience learns a great many things about Rosales, including how he wrote the music to a variety of musical pieces, but his brother in South America, also from Bogotá,wrote the lyrics. We also find out that Rosales is one of the first Latin-American composers who had his music performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1932 with “Three Spanish Dances.”

But the work that garnered Parsa’s attention was sitting in boxes in his aunt’s basement, an unproduced opera that focuses on a love story in the foothills of the Andes Mountains, a love story that involves more than a love triangle — a love parallelogram. Parsa researches his family tree on his mother’s side of the family to find music that performers describe as “lush” and “provocative.” What ensues in the film is Parsa’s endeavor to get that music from the page to the ears of others. He said it took about four to five years to make that happen, but the result is a journey that he was happy to have taken.

“One of the things that this journey has taught me, is it is so important to document your own family history and pass that on to the next generation,” the Uptown resident said. “There’s a lot of generational knowledge and a lot of family history that is disappearing every single day. Everybody may not have a long lost opera in their family, but their stories are just as precious.”

And to think the process began when the Columbia College film school graduate’s mother Googled her family name to discover YouTube videos of musicians performing her grandfather’s works. The discovery led Parsa to ask the question: What happened to the rest of his music? “The Way to Andina” answers that with the help of local musicians and the CSO.

“People in my family are just about overjoyed as you would imagine … kind of filling in that hole in my family tree is really fulfilling for everybody,” Parsa said. As his first solo feature-length film, he said people have responded to the film’s universal themes — one of which is immigration.

“I think there are a lot of timely issues in this story, especially this national conversation about immigration and the role of immigrants in society and what benefits they can possibly give us,” Parsa added. “That’s a strand that I wanted to follow in the film. I think for a lot of Americans who have families that have lived in this country for a long time, we don’t think about immigration ever, right? It’s so far removed, so to kind of trace back those footsteps is a valuable exercise for just about anybody to do.”

Granted, Parsa doesn’t admit to being an opera fan after this project. He laughs at the suggestion of getting a membership with the CSO, but he said ask him in a couple of years. For now, he does have opera music on his phone that he listens to.

“It’s starting to grow on me,” said the 30-year-old web developer.

With the honor of best documentary given to this film but the Chicago Latino Film Festival, Parsa is already thinking about his next project — diving into the pool that is his father’s family history. His father, featured in the Andina film, is a first-generation Iranian immigrant.

“He came here the day that the Apollo 13 crisis was being resolved,” Parsa added. “I’m not sure how yet, but I think there’s a film in there somewhere.”

“The Way to Andina” airs 9 p.m. Thursday on WTTW-Ch.11. Other viewings run during the weekend. A concert based on more of Eustasio Rosales' music will be held on May 27, at the National Shrine of Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini, 2520 N. Lakeview Ave. in Chicago, as a collaboration of Parsa’s family and Crossing Borders Ensemble and the Mulati Ensemble.